Category: Cows & Buffalos

No Vision, No Data, No Conservation

The decision-making process on Lantau’s future appears to be explicitly designed to exclude community input. From day one LanDAC membership has been almost wholly drawn from the real estate, tourist and logistics industries, along with government political supporters and appointees. The public rightly doubts the genuineness of this ‘consultation.’

The government plan offers no vision for the island: what will it be like to visit, live or work in Lantau in 2026, 2036 or beyond? The report doesn’t say. At the same time it tries to micro-manage tourist development in ways that are counter-productive. Continue reading →

In its final work report LanDAC, the government’s Lantau advisory committee, urges stronger conservation protection, but proposes new road and rail links through a country park and affirms support for the massive East Lantau Metropolis (ELM) plan.

The committee offers no support for protecting the island’s threatened wetlands, its buffalo and cattle herds or the shrinking Chinese white dolphin population. Incredibly, however, among those items it does regard as worthy of conservation are the airport, Ngong Ping 360 and the yet-to-be-completed Hong Kong-Macau Bridge. These are significant for “landscape conservation,” the report says.